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US Grants Home Schooling German Family Political Asylum
A US judge has granted political asylum to a family who said they fled Germany to avoid persecution for home schooling their children. Uwe Romeike and his wife, Hannelore, moved to Tennessee after German authorities fined them for keeping their children out of school and sent police to escort them to classes. Mike Connelly, attorney for the Home School Legal Defence Association, argued the case. He says, "Home schoolers in Germany are a particular social group, which is one of the protected grounds under the asylum law. This judge looked at the evidence, he heard their testimony, and he felt that the way Germany is treating home schoolers is wrong. The rights being violated here are basic human rights."
The only stipulation here is that the kids are taught in a classroom setting by certified teachers according to a strict curriculum. Any additional schooling a parent might want to do can be done before or after school and on weekends.
Parents have plenty of rights, but the right to destroy their kid's future by teaching them anti-science and borderline racist interpretations of history ought not be one. We have whole states here in the US that are filled with nincompoops because of homeschooling. Homeschooling begets more homeschooling in an endless cycle. When you try to push morals and religion into education you end up with none of the above.
Sounds completely reasonable to me. I don't think any of the half-baked religious nuts know enough about anything to give their children a proper education.
the kids get indoctrinated at home by parents who are to make sure the kids will never stand a chance in any competitive way in the real world. Now maybe this Judge considers that a 'right' for the parents, but he sure as hell ain't thinking about the kids rights! Germany should kick the ambassador out. This is no concern of the USA and besides... USA talking about human rights in itself is an insult for anyone who cares about such rights. Feel free to disagree, bit -1 troll isn't the way to out it.
Not all homeschoolers are teaching racial bias or inaccurate science. Not by far.
Mmm. Yeah. Pretty much "by far".
http://www.google.com/search?q=homeschooling+materials
Yes, it was clearly the US they were targeting. If they wanted to home-school their German-speaking children, they could easily and freely moved to Switzerland (the eastern part of the country speaks German). No political asylum needed, much cheaper to travel. Also their kids could speak with their new-found friends, and read books, and watch TV, without a huge learning curve.
What are you talking about? Home-schooled kids don't have friends, and they won't have them when they grow up, either.
"I zero-index my hamsters" - Willtor (147206)
Governments which treat people’s children like possessions of the state should be overthrown.
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
Yeah, but to be a state examined teacher does that mean you're required to teach a particular curriculum? I think the point was this family didn't agree with the state's method of teaching and wanted to teach their own content.
TFA seems to suggest that the family had a problem with their children learning anything other than what agreed with their religion. Evolution was not mentioned but you can bet it was on the list. Even objecting to your kids learning about other religions I view as utterly backward.
They seemed to not want their kids to have a balanced education, instead they wanted them indoctrinated into their own religion from an early age.
I dont read
It's not made up, ass hat. That is the shit they teach in schools, and that the shit that they teach the teachers while they're getting their "education" degrees. Some of the most ignorant people I know are the ones who are going into the education field. They don't know anything about math, science, history, etc...but they somehow know how to teach. It's all bullshit. I had a friend of mine, who's working on a education degree at the University of Oregon, tell me that you can't teach kids facts, because facts are boring. That's the kind of mentality that teachers have these days. Heck, I only graduated 7 years ago, and even then half of my teachers were utter morons...they didn't know a damn thing about what it was they were teaching. The writing teacher couldn't spell and had terrible grammar. The history teacher got his historical figures messed up all the time. The only decent instructors were the ones who had been there for decades and had real degrees in math, physics, etc.
Don't take life so seriously. No one makes it out alive.
And given that it's the parent's job to raise their child, not the state's, what's wrong with that?
Flip it around, and imagine it were a nut-job relgious state that didn't teach whole swaths of science because they didn't jive with the official religion, and attempted indoctrinate the children with that religious viewpoint.
In that case, wouldn't you support the right of a parent to pull their child out of school and educate their own children as they saw fit, teaching them critical thinking and a broader view of science and instilling in them values of tolerance and such, while at the same time giving them a superior overall education?
Really, it's a difference of worldview, and it doesn't really matter who is on which side, it's still wrong either way. This family simply has certain values, and they have every right to resist being forced into values they disagree with. This is basic freedom of religion, and it is a very big deal for us in the US. Why they don't want their children to attend a state school is immaterial. The children are getting an excellent education, and the government should have no right to force them into a worldview they disagree with. The US happens to have specific freedoms regarding just that, which we have established as a basic human right, and so asylum is granted.
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
Home schoolers rarely follow a curriculum, most are nuts who don't allow their children any contact with the outside world so there are no conflicting religious ideas. If there is no regulation home school should be illegal. I remember being told to duck when a vehicle went by so the neighbours wouldn't see we were not at school. That is wrong.
And if you are home schooled with some bs made up curriculum Harvard doesn't accept you.
Germany restricting freedom?!? Well, first time for everything I guess.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.